After a meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Indonesian president Joko Widodo, the company announced it will invest $1.7 billion in the country’s AI and cloud computing infrastructure over the next four years, including construction of a data center campus.
ECONOMIC UPDATE – MARKET OVERVIEW
While the Dow posted its longest winning streak since December, the plantation workers of Slavelandia—people that used to be called middle and lower class—are on a losing streak.
MARKETS: EXPECT EXTREME DISTORTIONS TO GET MUCH WORSE FROM HERE. THIS IS WHY.
Just this past week we heard from World Control, AKA, The Federal Reserve, who made it VERY clear to the market that rate cuts/more easy money is coming. With that, the MMRI has CRATERED, falling from a Red Zone/Extreme Risk high of 309.2 to an Amber Zone/High Risk 294.3.
PLANTATION WORKERS OF SLAVELANDIA SUFFERING FROM INFLATION
Forty-one percent of Americans responding to an April Gallup poll said inflation or the high cost of living is their main economic concern. The number has risen for three years running, from 32 percent in 2022 to 35 percent in 2023.
WHITE HOUSE PRESSURED MEDIA TO CENSOR COVID LAB LEAK THEORY IN 2021 (AS THE TRENDS JOURNAL WAS TRUTH TELLING)
Few news outlets or social media platforms in early 2021 were reporting on the possibility that COVID came from a Wuhan lab, and not a “natural origin.”
NETANYAHU: MORE WAR, NO PEACE, NO PERMANENT CEASEFIRE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that any talk of a permanent ceasefire with Hamas is out of the question—even if every single remaining hostage is released.
ISRAEL REJECTS PEACE AGREEMENT, ATTACKS RAFAH, KILLS MORE PALESTINIANS
Israeli forces on Tuesday seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing after declining a ceasefire agreement that Hamas agreed to.
Global Economy
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
Merger and Acquisition took a break when the Federal Reserve and EU began aggressively raising interest rates from their zero and negative levels back in March and July 2022 respectively. Now, with The Street betting that the Fed will lower interest rates, the equation is simple: The lower interest rates go, the higher the M&A activity will rise.
SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S ECONOMIC STRUGGLE
At a 30 April meeting, China’s Politburo—the small group that sets government policies—signaled that mortgage interest rates will be lowered again and that aid would be offered to floundering real estate developers.
SPOTLIGHT: JAPAN’S ECONOMY IN FLUX
Japan’s central bank intervened in markets last week for a second time, buying $23 billion worth of yen to prop up the country’s sinking currency, Bloomberg reported after analyzing the bank’s current account figures.
The Israel War
NETANYAHU: MORE WAR, NO PEACE, NO PERMANENT CEASEFIRE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that any talk of a permanent ceasefire with Hamas is out of the question—even if every single remaining hostage is released.
ISRAEL REJECTS PEACE AGREEMENT, ATTACKS RAFAH, KILLS MORE PALESTINIANS
Israeli forces on Tuesday seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing after declining a ceasefire agreement that Hamas agreed to.
COLLEGE PROTESTS CONTINUE TO RESONATE IN U.S. DESPITE POLICE CRACKDOWN AND MEDIA MOCKERY
College campuses across the U.S. continue to represent the pro-peace movement and opposition to Washington’s support of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
AI
DESPERATE COMPANIES POACH EACH OTHERS’ AI ENGINEERS
Tech companies’ struggle to attract AI engineers is getting ugly. Twenty-somethings are seeing compensation packages worth $1 million or more annually dangled before their eyes, some industry insiders have said.
AI WILL DO AWAY WITH MOST CALL CENTERS, INDIAN EXPERT FORECASTS
AI is taking on many of humans’ functions at call centers and could erase the need for most of their employees in as little as a year, according to Krithi Krithivasan, CEO of India’s Tata Consultancy Services.
AI: THE NEXT GENE EDITOR?
The state of the art in gene editing is a process called CRISPR. It uses snippets from bacteria’s immune systems that are able to slice DNA.
Hi-Tech Science
SYNTHETIC CELLS LOOK AND ACT LIKE NATURE’S OWN
A research team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has reported a first: the group engineered DNA and proteins to synthesize cells that look and act like those in the human body but have improved capabilities.
WEAK ELECTRIC CURRENT ZAPS DEPRESSION
As many as three million American adults ages 65 and older are beset by depression, according to figures from the Pew Research Center.
A CHEAPER NEW WAY TO CULL LITHIUM FROM TRASH
Supplies of lithium, the clean energy transformation’s precious metal, are projected to fall millions of tons short of demand in the years ahead.